Since 2008, an independent look at challenges and opportunities in sports and financial investing, with occasional diversions as my mood takes me. Nothing is for sale, and this not a Profit and Loss report either. They're boring.

Wednesday, 27 July 2016

To my son's quote about "travelling 3,500 miles plus for a meaningless friendly, to watch a team with half the squad missing” could now be added "to see a rather boring goalless draw", for that was the final score after 90 minutes. Mercifully we were spared the nonsense of having a penalty shoot-out to determine a pre-season friendly winner, for the match itself was frankly awful, although the occasion as a whole was memorable. Yours truly got to meet the finest club chairman in football (Steve Parish lest you not know) and the pre and post game meet-ups were more fun than I had anticipated. Palace ended their tour of North America unbeaten but pre-season results are not important with LiveScore apparently not sure who Koln, Alemannia Aachen, Malaga and Marseille were actually playing this weekend:

The result of the advisory non-legally binding EU referendum was a topic of conversation that came up often, and I was pleased to see that the prices on my bets on Article 50 not being triggered before July 2017 (at 2.3) and not being triggered in 2016 (at 1.5) have both shortened (the latter considerably to 1.07, with time running out) and appear to be some validation at least that how I felt this whole mess would play out might not be too far off the mark.

Philadelphia is overwhelmingly Democrat, (Obama won 85.2% of the vote there in 2012), and the city is coincidentally home to the Democratic National Convention this coming week, and many conversations with locals there expressed concern that the result of the non-legally binding advisory EU referendum was bad news for them, and good news for Trump, given the similar demographics of both groups:

If the Britons who powered Brexit to victory were Americans, they'd look a lot like Donald Trump voters.

Both camps are fueled by older, working-class whites spurred by nationalism and nostalgia for a bygone era. Their economic prospects have diminished in an era of globalization, and they feel that immigration is damaging their pocketbooks and their cultural identity. And they think the elites aren't listening.

"They're frighteningly close," said Mary Nugent, a doctoral candidate who teaches U.K. politics at Rutgers University. "The demographic breakdown is also similar in that overwhelmingly lower-educated and lower-income people voted for Brexit. That's true of Trump supporters as well. It's an expression of disaffected, mostly white voters and an expression of the feeling of not being heard."

Scary times when Trump is considered to have about the same chance of becoming the next US President as Middlesbrough do of being relegated.In other news, Geoff has finally been sent the long-promised document containing a number of the systems I mention in this blog from time to time, and in plenty of time for the Bundeslayga systems which start on 5th August as well as the post-season MLB coming ever closer. I didn't include the Lay Last Loser system as I have only followed this for one season, but I'll report back on how this performed in 2016-17 later.

The Bundeslyga had its worst results last season, +1.76 points from 167 selections (ROI 1.05%) compared with +29.7 points from 594 selections over the previous three seasons, and an ROI of 5%. Selections were significantly down last season from an average of 198.

A rather bizarre push occurred this weekend in my MLB Home Improvement system when the Chicago White Sox were a selection versus the Detroit Tigers. Unfortunately, the listed starting pitcher Chris Sale appears to have had something of a tantrum pre-game over wearing throwback jerseys, and was suspended and replaced, thus voiding my bets. The second selection of the weekend (Toronto Blue Jays) fared better as they won both on the money line and run line.

About Me

I have had a life-long interest in sports and after studying Pure Mathematics with Statistics at secondary school, have been fascinated by odds and probability.
The first system I came up with was a simple one - back the favourite and double up after a loss until a winner. Simple enough in theory, and I told my Dad about it. Not being a betting man himself, he ran it by some of his colleagues, and came home to tell me that it wouldn’t work because a long losing run would mean that the bank would be empty. Then there was always the possibility that the winner would be returned at odds-on, meaning that the total returns would not match the outlay. Not what a ten year old wants to hear! Only slightly daunted, I then went on a search for the Holy Grail, the secret to riches that I knew was out there somewhere. Finally in 2004 I stumbled across an article about Betting Exchanges and four years on I am able to make a steady profit. I am at that age where I can start thinking about retirement and anything I make from trading sports will bring that day forward.